“Yin” and “Masked Faces”: A small town landscape interwoven with multiple perspectives

 

 

At the end of last year, two other literary works were awarded the 13th Middle Grade Fiction Award, along with the book The Curse Of The Lost City introduced in this column last issue. The two works were Yin by Cheong Sio Han and Masked Faces by Lawrence Lei. The novel Yin tells a rather heavy life story: an accidental miscarriage not only gives Ah Ye a sense of rebirth and forces her to walk through the darkest part of herself, but also introduces her into the wordless poetry of the universe and opens up a path of life without any right or wrong.  The author of Yin is a “new generation” author in Macau. This book is based on her personal experiences, and therefore, although written as fiction, it is also infused with a lot of personal feelings, so readers can taste the imaginary world constructed by the words, but at the same time appreciate the touching and sentimental connections to real life.

 

Cheong Sio Han’s writing is full of feminine sensitivity, and her dynamic and unpredictable words hit the most hidden corners of the reader’s heart every time. In addition to her debut novel Yin, her novel Gyration and Stillness (Shopkeeper Ding), which won the sixth Macau Literary Award earlier, as well as her other short stories, are also interesting works that allow readers to appreciate the scenery of Macau and its people through her words.

 

As for the author of Masked Faces, I believe many local readers have already heard of him. As an established and well-known playwright, Lawrence Lei has also ventured into fiction writing in recent years. The story of Masked Faces is structured around double plots spiralling forward. First there is a female doctor from the Macau CDC (Center for Disease Control), who is busy fighting the epidemic, and is torn between her career and love. Then there is an internationally renowned film director, hiding in a luxury hotel in a small town, who tells stories to some mysterious VIPs about an encounter with a female doctor working through the epidemic of the century. Who is in whose story? And who is in control of whose fate?

 

The new epidemic has turned the familiar world into an unfamiliar one. We have to admire Lei’s keen sense of the world under the epidemic and his amazing creative power. Literature is a mirror of the times. A literary work may be a work of fiction and imagination, but the social scenes and human landscapes reflected in it can be both real and penetrating.